Ex-KMT Yilan County chapter secretary detained over recall signatures

Taipei, April 25 (CNA) The Taiwan Yilan District Court ordered three people, including the former chief secretary of the Kuomintang's (KMT) Yilan County chapter, Yu Ling-chieh (俞凌傑), to be detained Friday in a case involving allegedly fake signatures in a recall campaign.

The prosecutors in charge of the case had filed a request to detain Yu and two others on the suspicion that they faked signatures on petitions aimed at staging a recall vote against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Chen Chun-yu (陳俊宇).

The other two individuals ordered detained were executive members of the KMT Yilan chapter surnamed Chen (陳) and Lee (李).

The Yilan case is the latest in a string of actions by prosecutors around the country, mostly targeted at opposition KMT offices, to crack down on alleged signature fraud in campaigns to recall legislators.

The investigations, which KMT has contended amount to political persecution by the ruling DPP, are ongoing in several major cities, including Taipei, New Taipei, and Kaohsiung.

In the Yilan County case, prosecutors and investigators on Thursday raided the KMT chapter office and the home of campaign leader Lee Hui-ling (李惠玲) over the allegations, which would be violations of the Criminal Code and the Personal Data Protection Act.

In addition to the searches, more than 10 individuals were summoned for questioning at the Yilan District Prosecutors Office.

Before Thursday at midnight, two KMT members -- a man surnamed Hsia (夏) and his wife -- had been released on NT$30,000 (US$923) bail, and Lee Hui-ling had been released on NT$200,000 bail.